Cat killing baby birds

How do you catch them?

My GD has four cats, and acres of land for them to roam, she has a cat flap that was being used by other cats, (I thought her cats were throwing parties) She solved that problem by having the cats re-chiped and the flap fitted with a securing device that responds to the chips,only. That however does not prevent the cats from dragging in moles, mice, rabbits,pigeons, and on one occasion a coot. Some,nearly all of them, alive.The coot made a spectacular mess,GD having left the kitchen door open, and the coot ending after a violent struggle, on the top of the kitchen units.Nature is nature, but I don't particularly like the amount of livestock, cats are responsible for killing.I know that squirrels are egg eaters, magpies (look and act a bit like killer whales) and kill small birds and eat eggs, but cats seem to enjoy it too much. Well fed cats are just as responsible. It's something in their genetic makeup, not as bad as foxes perhaps or wolverines, but nevertheless worrying.

One of our cats tried to take a frozen chicken out of the cat flap.

That rings a bell.
A neighbour came around to my next door neighbour and told her that HER cat had just dragged the sunday lunch, cooked ,chicken off the draining board.

Cats cannot 'enjoy' killing things. They have no sadistic impulses because they are simple little automatons with only a few brain cells.

Human beings on the other hand.......

I do sympathise. Some years ago, my 2 cats and the cat from next door ganged up, caught a small frog, and played batting it between them for some time. By the time I heard the screaming from the frog, I was sure it would die more quickly if I didn't interfere. It didn't, the cats sat in a triangle, like the 3 witches, and slowly but surely passed it between them. I couldn't stand it any longer, removed the frog and my neighbour assisted in helping the frog to a more speedy exit from the world. We both felt bad, but the frog was beyond help. My two cats were so disgusted with me, they refused to come in the house, or to eat anything I put out for them for several days. They'd sit on the garage roof, fixing me with steely looks. I cracked and bought them that expensive cat food I usually refused to spend money on - that did the trick, they war back in the house in quick time. We now live on a main road, and have no cats as a result of this. Neither do the neighbours, but we do have lots of birds of many varieties. We also have a sparrow hawk, that arrives in the winter, and has a kind of all you can eat banquet as it swoops down and catches birds from our bird feeders. Nature eh!

Cats kill because they are carnivores. They hunt because that's what they have always had to do to survive. I think they probably do enjoy it in the same way we enjoy bringing home tasty food from the supermarket, but we can hardly judge them for it. There was an interesting programme on radio 4 this morning about cats, and the fact that we have only fully understood their dietary needs for about 40 years or so. Prior to that they were not really kept as pets (not sure about that as I had a pet cat as a child) but as mousers or similar and needed to hunt to complement any scraps that were given. Hence it's a bit early to start to judge them as 'wanton killers'.

Now humans on the other hand, now there is a species that really enjoys killing, even their own kind

I've got a very useful square sided see through plastic box that used to have chocolates in Tegan which is ideal for frogs or mice. As long as you can steer them away from tiny gaps they can sqeeze under you can generally get them into the box eventually.

I once found one of the cats throwing a baby frog around. It was quite limp and dead looking, with bits sort of hanging off it so I threw it in the pedal bin. Half an hour later I went to throw something else away and found a very lively baby frog, with all its limbs intact, bouncing around trying to get out